


Here For Your Entertainment

by IcyPanther



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dehumanization, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keithtober 2018, Keithtober Whumptober 2018, Locked in a Cage, Muzzled, Non-Consensual Touching, Nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 09:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16385654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyPanther/pseuds/IcyPanther
Summary: “Gather round, one and all. Feast your eyes on this ferocious, bloodthirsty hue-men!” Keith was shaken, his owner’s hand twisted cruelly in his hair. The aliens circled his cage, screaming for blood, for pain, jamming in batons to try and get a taste of it for themselves. Keith shuddered. He knew what came next. And he could do nothing to stop it. Just like every other time. He was just here for their entertainment after all.





	Here For Your Entertainment

**Author's Note:**

> **Timeline notes:** Anywhere in later season four / season five while Keith is with the Blade of Marmora, goes AU after.  
>  **Warning notes:** A lot here, please read carefully. Depictions of violence, forced nudity, non-consensual touching, child abuse, forced drug use, sexualization and dehumanization. But, um, a happy-ish ending?  
>  **Additional notes:** For Tumblr follower kiriban event with prompt: locked in a cage with Keith?

“Oh wow. Look at this one.”

The voice was high, grating.

A child.

Something poked inside of his cage, pressing up against his arm. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore it.

It didn’t hurt.

Yet.

“Look at it!”

Not it.

Him.

“It’s a…” The voice scrunched up, trying to sound out the words written above his display. “A hue-men?”

No. Human.

He was a human.

Mostly.

Well… he used to be.

He was no better than an animal here.

“And what is its name?” prompted a voice. Probably the child’s mom.

He shuddered. What was she doing, allowing him here?

Did she…

Did she not realize…?

“Bloodlust,” came the chirped reply.

He winced.

No.

That was not his name.

His name was…

It was…

He let out a breath, swallowed up by the large muzzle affixed over his face.

His name was…

Was…

“He doesn’t look very dangerous,” the child whined.

“Ah ah,” came a gently scolding, cultured tone. His owner. “Don’t let its appearances deceive you, my young sir. Bloodlust is a ferocious monster indeed. It’s sedated now for the viewing but I promise, you will get to see it in its full glory soon enough.”

“Cool!”

Their voices drifted away although their words remained.

Bloodlust.

Not Bloodlust.

His name was...

It was…

He swallowed thickly, the word dancing on a silent tongue.

Keith.

His name was Keith.

xxx

 _“What is_ this _?” a high-pitched, angry voice demanded. “I asked for a Galran you imbecile, not this pathetic looking creature!”_

_Keith winced at the noise, awareness slowly returning to heavy limbs and heavier eyelids._

_Where was he?_

_What had happened?_

_“It is a Galran,” a second voice sounded. “One of the Blades of Marmora, captured as requested.”_

_Keith blinked. What?_

_Captured?_

_He forced leaden eyes open._

_A dark, dingy storeroom stared back. The people talking were behind him._

_“Does this look like a Galran? No. It does not. It’s_ —” _a foot kicked into his side and without meaning to Keith let out a gasp, caught unaware. “It’s awake,” the voice changed pitch._

_Keith found himself pushed onto his back then, arms painfully cuffed and now trapped beneath him, and into the face of a sneering alien, humanoid in shape but with dappled brown and yellow skin that highlighted bright green eyes._

_They were not kind eyes and Keith returned the glare in full, baring his teeth._

_“Who the hell are you?” he snarled, refusing to be intimidated despite his current situation._

_“What are you?” the alien fired back._

_“A human,” Keith growled. They wanted a Galran, right? He was more than aware he looked_ nothing _like that half of his heritage and he would use it to his advantage right now._

 _“He’s a Galran, I swear it!” cried out the second alien. “A Blade of Marmora! They_ have _to be Galran to be in the organization. He is!”_

_Keith recognized him. It had been the contact he had been sent to meet with on behalf of the Blades._

_The double crossing back-stabbing_ bastard _._

_Keith forced himself not to react. He had to pretend not to know this alien._

_“A hue-men?” the first alien repeated, frowning. “I am not familiar with this species.”_

_Keith kept his lips a thin line, not offering up anything more until he got his own answers._

_The green-eyed alien’s lips curled. “And if even_ I _have not heard of this hue-men… well, perhaps this works in my favor.”_

_What?_

_The alien tapped on his wrist, summoning up a holographic board. He flipped through it with a growing smirk. “Your credits are deposited. I still desire a bloodthirsty Galran for my personal collection. Mayhap not one of these Blades again though? They seem to be… mixed.”_

_“What the fuck are you talking about?” Keith’s hands tightened behind his back, seeking the hilt of his blade._

_Collection?_

_Credits?_

_He was being_ sold?

_What the actual fuck?_

_His hand met air._

_Nothing._

_His blade was gone._

_“Noisy,” clucked the green-eyed alien. “We’ll have to fix that.”_

_He turned his back then to Keith, writing him off as a threat._

_Keith growled low in his throat and shifted his feet, setting them planted on the floor to shove off. Even with his hands bound he was more than capable of taking out this smarmy asshole._

_“Ah ah,” the alien scolded without even turning around. “Let’s not have any violence.”_

_There was a sting then in Keith’s neck and he realized the fake Blade informant had come from behind him, injecting something into him, no doubt the drug he’d been dosed with originally._

_He let out an unintelligible groan as his eyelids sank closed without permission._

_A pair of green eyes looming above him and a cruel smile were the last thing he saw._

xxx

“Gather round, gather round, it’s time for the show of the evening. Come, come, see the violent Bloodlust!”

Keith closed his eyes tight as the chatter grew in volume about his cage.

It didn’t matter how many times it had happened now.

It was terrifying every time.

The drugs made sure of that.

His nails dug into his palms, huddled close to his chest and he curled tighter around them as though that could save him.

One of the metal prods dug into his bare backside, hitting mottled bruised flesh. Another struck even lower, going for his inner thigh and Keith pulled away from that one, hearing the laughter and hating how even now he could feel darkness stain his cheeks.

He almost wished they’d drug him already.

At least then…

Then he was in too much pain to care.

“Look at it,” chuckled one of the many viewers. “So pathetic.”

Keith curled up tighter, the chains holding his arms tethered to the bottom of his prison giving a low clink.

The voices grew louder and Keith heard the barred door to his cage open.

He shuddered.

He knew what was coming.

A hand descended in his hair, grown long now and brushing at his shoulders, and _yanked._ His face was pulled free from the protective hollow he’d made against his chest and he was dragged painfully to his knees, fully exposed and on display now.

Some of the audience members whistled and others jeered.

He kept his eyes closed.

His breaths echoed in his ears, muffled by the heavy muzzle across his face.

“Behold, the ferocious Bloodlust,” the alien, his owner, called, giving him a shake. “It may not look like much now but that’s because we must keep it sedated for your safety. It has killed _hundreds_ , ripping them open and painting itself in their blood.”

Booing sounded and the rattle on the bars grew louder.

“But what say you to unleashing the violent hue-men creature and showing it what we think of its kind and their barbaric ways? Should we give it a taste of its own savagery?”

The crowd _roared_ and the metal batons the audience was given smashed against the bars.

Keith felt his pulse quicken.

This was…

This was the one time they removed his muzzle.

He both hated and lived for it.

The heavy snaps behind his head sounded like gunshots and the mask clattered to the ground with a clank.

Keith had barely drawn a full breath, _air,_ on his lips, before his owner was working one hand inside his mouth and pulling it wide open, cracked lips bleeding at the rough handling.

Keith had stopped trying to bite him a long time ago.

It did no good.

“Gaze upon this creature’s maw,” the alien cried. “Its teeth are stained red by the countless innocents it has preyed upon.”

The crowd roared, this time out of anger and hate.

It wasn’t true, the stain not of blood but of dye they coated the inside of the muzzle with, replacing it anew after each performance. Keith didn’t protest though.

He couldn’t.

And even if he could find words again, locked away inside him after the… the _months_ of silence there was no point.

They wouldn’t listen.

“But no longer! This violent hue-men has been captured and its reign of terror is over!”

Cheering.

“Let us now serve it _justice._ Let us see it _bleed._ ”

The screams were too familiar now.

So was the sting of the syringe pressed into his puncture riddled forearm from both the drugs and the nutrients they gave him through tubes after deciding he was “too violent” to let out of his muzzle to eat the slop they called food. _“Can’t let my favorite pet wither away on me,”_ his owner had murmured, petting his hair and trailing an unwanted hand down his naked back.

Keith’s head was released and he dimly heard the alien back away, the cage door closing, but it was all background to the fire beginning to stream its way through him, a liquid flow of lava that turned him from what little humanity he managed to retain to the senseless beast they wanted him to be.

He screamed, a broken, choked cry as the flames pooled in his stomach, bled through his veins and ravaged his insides.

It was beyond agony.

He crashed into the floor of the cage, writhing.

His arms yanked painfully in front of him, tethered still by the length of chain. The gathered aliens jammed their prods, some turned on to shock him, others just trying to reach him in any manner, adding to the torment, their shouts mingling with his own.

The drugs were turning his vision scarlet with their flames, clarity being replaced with sheer pain and hurt and the sound of his own screams.

He lost himself to them, to the painful _nothingness_ and escape from reality they and the drugs offered even as his body was battered about and torn apart from the inside, just as it was every night.

Again and again and again.

It never stopped.

It never would.

xxx

_It was just over a week since his pop died._

_Just over a week since he’d been put in this home, with what a bunch of adults had told him was a foster family, his new dad, and just… just left him._

_Keith buried his head into the pillow of the small room he’d been given, trying to muffle his sobs as he had every night before he awoke the man he had been told to call father, who had stormed in yelling at him to “shut his trap before I shut it for you!” and Keith had forced himself to quiet his cries as much as he could._

_That man wasn’t his father though, his pop._

_He wanted_ his _pop._

_He couldn’t._

_He was dead._

_He was never coming back._

_Another sob shook small shoulders._

_“That’s it!” the roar came from outside the room and Keith nearly startled off the bed. There was the sound of a door being flung open and Keith’s breath hitched as equally heavy footsteps pounded down the hall._

_His own door was opened, rattling in its frame, and his foster father stormed across the floor, skin purpling even in the dim lighting from the window._

_He threw a hand out and latched it into Keith’s hair, dragging him from where he was huddled under the blanket and into a kneel atop the mattress._

_“I’ve told you!” he snarled, spittle flying, “to quiet the fuck down! I have to work in the morning you ungrateful little bastard and you are keeping me awake!”_

_“I’m, I’m sorry,” Keith choked out, too afraid by the sheer_ rage _in his foster father’s eyes to fight back, to stand up for himself as his pop had always taught him to do._

_“You will be.”_

_The rage had morphed from fire to ice but the change was even more terrifying._

_Keith was forced back down onto the bed and he didn’t dare try to move as the hand released his hair, reflexive tears pooling in his eyes from the handling._

_There was a_ ripping _noise and Keith didn’t even have a chance to do anything as a large piece of duct tape was pressed from the underside of the bed and across his back, the man leaning over him and pinning him down, to tape it to the other side._

 _“W-wait,” Keith protested, voice rising as another piece and then another was stretched across him, securing him to the bed, arms trapped beneath him. “Please, I didn’t_ —”

_A piece was slapped over his mouth._

_Keith choked on panic._

_“There,” the man panted, stepping back. “Now you’ll be quiet you little brat.”_

_Keith let out a muffled sob, wriggling uselessly against the restraints._

_“Remember this,” the man stomped away. “Or you won’t like what comes next.”_

_It was not the last time Keith found his cries forcibly silenced, be it with a gag or threats or a hit until he learned to lock them away on his own._

_He never forgot that terror._

xxx

Keith came to with a familiar pulsing behind his eyes that followed every use of the fire drug, eyes stinging and throat parched and raw from his screams.

The heavy muzzled gag was back on.

He moaned, pushing his nose against the floor of the cage even though he knew such an action wouldn't dislodge it.

“Ah ah,” his owner scolded and Keith tensed as a hand pressed down atop his head. “None of that now.”

The man was in here with him.

That never meant anything good.

“Look at you,” his owner continued and Keith felt the hand track from his hair down his back, repeating the stroke and lighting up every bruise, every cut and burn from both the previous night and the many others in various stages of healing.

They didn’t hurt at all compared to his owner’s touch, strokes languid as they moved from his back to his hip, rubbing small circles.

He didn’t even try to pull away.

There was no point.

“You’re _filthy,”_ he continued. “Look at all of this blood.”

A yellow hand was shoved into Keith’s face, the sharp scent of iron on the bloodied fingers.

“They really did a number on you last night,” he said, back to stroking Keith’s hip. “But don’t you worry, they paid most generously for it.” He chuckled then and Keith hated how even now, after all this time, the sound made him flinch.

“That being said, it looks like my favorite pet needs a bath, hmm?”

Keith shuddered.

He couldn’t believe he’d ever hated the previous hosings. Now…

Now…

A wet sponge, cold water as always, pressed without warning against his back and he started, his cheeks darkening as the man guided it from there to backside, stopping to caress the gentle curve of flesh, and then trailed it down his thighs, squeezing out the excess water there.

Keith shuddered again. The alien had never… never gone that far, done _that,_ but the threat hung over him, growing closer and closer each day as his owner had taken to personally attending him.

They’d already taken so much. Keith hated that there was still more for them to take.

He hated that they knew it.

“Now,” his owner murmured, amusement clear, “let’s get you cleaned up.”

xxx

_The first time they’d given him a bath had been by Keith’s count two weeks since his capture._

_He awoke to the sound of high-powered jets and confusion had reigned for a moment as he tried to figure out what was happening as his head was_ pounding _and his vision was blurry from both the pain of last night’s show_ — _he shuddered at the term — and his body’s exhaustion as it tried to adapt to the fluid inserted diet they injected into him once a day._

_And then there was water._

_Keith didn’t even had a chance to prepare as it cut through the bars and propelled him from where he’d been lying on the ground, manacled hands clutched to his chest, and against the opposite bars in his barely six foot by four foot cage, open on all sides so he could never hide, never find a moment of privacy._

_The force kept him pinned as water blasted his face and went up his nose, bouncing off the thick muzzle that hid his lower jaw and kept his mouth sealed._

_He couldn’t breathe._

_He couldn’t_ breathe.

_Dark spots were dancing in his eyes and the roaring of the water was growing dim about him and he vaguely wondered if he was going to drown right here, when the water shut off without warning._

_He fell down to the soaked ground of his cage, chest heaving and body aching, already feeling the new bruises forming from where the bars had dug into his flesh._

_There was laughter then as he shakily pulled himself to his knees, leveling a glare that was not heated enough at the two aliens standing outside his cage._

_It was hard though to look or feel intimidating when he was naked, chained, muzzled, covered in wounds and now dripping wet._

_“Aww, look at it, I think you made it mad,” laughed one of the tall, bi-pedal aliens that somewhat resembled a gorilla. Keith recognized them as the crew that took care of the “exhibits,” which other than himself seemed to be more animalistic species rather than sentient ones._

_They treated him just like he was one of them though._

_It hurt more than Keith wished it did._

_His situation was humiliating enough, painful enough, and they rubbed salt in the wound every time they treated him as a mindless beast when they_ knew _he was aware and could speak as they had been there when they’d forced the muzzle upon him._

_The more ape looking one still had a bandage on his finger from that although it no longer gave Keith any satisfaction._

_“I think it needs another douse, don’t you?”_

_Keith’s eyes widened and there was no time to even try to get to his feet, to pull himself out of the way, before the alien lifted a hose and water was slamming into him. This time Keith managed to duck his head, to pivot so the stream was directed mostly at his back, although as the water sang into open wounds he wondered if that had been such a good idea._

_It shut off an agonizing minute later, leaving Keith soaked and huddled in his cage, bangs dripping water in his eyes when he dared to open them as the laughter moved off and he heard them start the apparent shower anew on one of the other cages._

_He pulled himself painfully to sitting and then dragged himself over to the farthest, driest corner, even though a thin puddle of water was there too._

_Keith drew his legs up to his chest, hiding his nakedness, and looped his bound arms over his knees to rest his damp head atop them._

_He throat ached at the sight of all of the water about him and he swallowed painfully. Not even a drop had gotten past the muzzle, pressed flush just below his nose, and he licked dry lips._

_He hadn’t had a drink or a morsel of food since he’d woken up, already stripped naked and thrust into the small cage and he’d done his best to not let such a thing get to him; he knew a fear tactic when he saw it (he hated that it had worked, that it still worked). The cage was to be his new home, the green-eyed alien had told him, and he, the hue-man, was to be a part of his traveling collection of violent and exotic beasts._

_Keith had found out what that meant the first night._

_He’d been wheeled into a showroom where aliens of all types had gathered, examining the caged animals. He hadn’t been muzzled then (a correction they made the following morning) and he’d tried to talk to those who had come by his cage, to make them listen; he was a Paladin of Voltron, this was wrong, all of this was_ wrong _. He had started off strong, pride refusing to let him beg, but as they laughed and ignored his words, asking the alien instead how he had trained it to speak, he had resorted to quiet pleading, hoping someone would see the truth._

_If they did they ignored it._

_They were here for fun._

_Fun, he learned, was torturing the creatures. They were whipped and beaten and shock-prodded and the audience had_ cheered _as blood flew and Keith had never witnessed such depravity, even from the Galra._

_It was disgusting._

_And then they’d come to him._

_He’d held his tongue as they shocked him through the bars, fighting back against the poles that prodded at him._

_The green-eyed alien had not liked his silence._

_He’d injected Keith with what he now called the fire drug and the rest of the evening had been a haze of pain and screams and cruel laughter._

_Every day had been the same since._

_Today was the first day for a change in routine with what was apparently being called a shower._

_Keith shivered, sending droplets flying._

_He needed to think of something else. His thoughts settled on his old team._

_Lance would be appalled, he knew, at the lack of shampoo and conditioner.  It brought the barest smile to his face under the muzzle._

_And Hunk. He’d be disgusted by the food, or whatever the injection could be called. He’d fix Keith up the biggest meal he could and—_

_Keith’s stomach let out a painful gurgle and he stopped. No thinking about food._

_Pidge, his mind cast desperately to._

_But it didn’t want to stay on her, trekking already to Shiro._

_Shiro._

_Keith let out a muffled sob, squeezing his eyes shut._

_He’d do_ anything _to have Shiro here._

_He wondered if they even knew he was missing. The Blades knew, but he also knew they wouldn’t come._

_Mission before the man._

_But maybe… maybe Kolivan would tell Voltron? Maybe they’d look for him?_

_He let out another sob._

_Where would they start? The contact had been a fake, everything about him would be fabricated and if the Blades hadn’t weeded that out to start he highly doubted the others would be able to._

_He was alone._

_The only way he was going to get out was if he escaped himself._

_But…_

_He glanced around his cage, his_ home, _and was greeted with the bars that stretched floor the ceiling and then over, spaced too thin for him to squeeze through (he’d tried multiple times) and no exit save for the one swinging locked door, barred as the rest of it. The floor was barren save for the water and he had_ nothing _to him except the cuffs around his wrists and the heavy muzzle gag._

_He needed to save himself._

_But…_

_But he had no idea how._

_He…_

_He wanted Shiro._

_He pressed his face against his upturned knees to hide the glimmer of tears._

_He wanted Shiro._

_Shiro had saved him once before. He’d given him hope, a future, a_ chance. _He’d become family, become_ safe, _made Keith feel the same._

_What he would give to feel safe again._

_He wished…_

_He wished Shiro could save him._

_Just…_

_Just one more time._

xxx

Loud swearing awoke Keith and he cast tired purple eyes — he was _always_ so tired now between the daily exhaustion and the drugs they gave him to keep him compliant and weak— to the side.

The two alien crew members were at the cage next to him, trying to wheel it forward and onto the ramp of a ship but the front wheel of the trolley it had been loaded onto had gotten stuck.

Keith wasn’t sure he could smile anymore or feel happiness, but his eyes sank back closed with a tired, almost content sigh.

It was a travel day.

They generally stayed at one location for a week or two before they traveled to a new showroom, a new group of wealthy and depraved aliens looking for a thrill where it started all over again. But travel day…

It meant quiet. Peace. A night off from the laughter and the jeers and the touches and the _pain._

It also meant the memories returned, visiting him in dreams or nightmares without the drugs to keep them away.

Sometimes they were good and Keith _lived_ for those ones; memories of he and Shiro at the zoo, of riding on his pop’s shoulders, of being roped into some game of Lance and Pidge’s, of happiness and laughter and smiles and all the things he hadn’t realized he’d had until they were there no longer.

Most times though they were bad. Wisps of horror of some of his worst foster families, of the bullies, of being _alone_ and forgotten, of the aliens’ taunts and blows that haunted him no matter where he went.

Of his owner’s sick smile and his sicker caress.

He prayed this time they were good dreams.

He _needed_ a good dream.

They were the only things he had left.

xxx

_Keith was twelve when he first tried to run away._

_He’d made the decision after his current foster mother had banned him from meals for the next three days after he’d failed to clean the kitchen to her standards. When he’d protested, throwing down the washrag with a cry of, “You can’t do that!” her husband had intervened, smacking him with the broom across his back and head and arms as Keith raised them to try and ward off the blows._

_His back_ ached _and a quick trip to the bathroom for a drink before he left had shown that the hits from almost two days ago now were already an ugly bruise purple._

_He didn’t take anything of theirs with him. Just the clothes on his back, the small duffel the home had given him with a few spare items, and his knife hidden at the bottom that his pop told him was once his mom’s. It was all he had left of them._

_Keith knew it was dangerous to run away._

_He no longer cared._

_He couldn’t stay here any longer, couldn’t stay in the foster system._

_His blood was pumping in his ears as he crept down the hallway, past the door to his foster parent’s bedroom at the top of the staircase._

_A rare thunderstorm rumbled overhead and Keith used the sound to muffle his steps as he bypassed the worst of the creaky stairs but had to hit the other one directly below it._

_He reached the bottom, heart thudding._

_No movement from upstairs._

_Keith paused at the kitchen, debating. His stomach growled and he pressed a hand to it, on day two of no meals._

_No._

_Too dangerous. It was additional noise. He could… he could find something once he got on the road._

_He hoped._

_He instead slipped past it and to the back door which opened to the vast Arizona landscape on the secluded ranch that had been his home for nearly two months. There was a highway that ran about two miles to the east behind the property. He’d go there, follow it, and maybe try his hand at hitchhiking._

_It couldn’t be worse._

_He shut the screen door behind with barely a rattle and stepped off the back patio, taking in a deep breath._

_A flicker of orange light appeared in the corner of his vision._

_He turned, ever so slowly, stomach clenching._

_His foster father sat there, freshly lit cigarette in one hand._

_They both stared at one another, neither having expected to see the other._

_The thunder let out another rumble and lighting flashed on the horizon._

_Keith could see the moment the man realized what Keith was planning, spotting the duffel bag._

_He ran._

_He didn’t get far._

_Keith may be quick but he was_ small _and his foster father was on him within a few steps, grabbing him by the back of his jacket and_ lifting _him off his feet._

 _“Where do you think you’re going?” he roared, shaking him like a disobedient puppy. “Do you know how much_ trouble _we’d be in if you offed and left?”_

_Keith didn’t answer that._

_Instead he slipped out of the jacket, hitting the ground with a thump._

_Get away get away get away—_

_He was tackled a moment later._

_Keith let out a breathless gasp as his foster father’s full weight descended on him and his hands scrabbled uselessly at the dry ground in front of him._

_“Enough!” barked out the man and Keith found his head slammed into the ground._

_He laid there, dazed, ears ringing._

_He heard the man get up and move away, followed by a strange clinking noise._

_Chains._

_The dog chain for the couple’s dog they staked outside when it was being too disruptive for them._

_No._

_Keith pushed his hands beneath him, vision wavering, but it was too little too late._

_The man’s knee pressed on his back, pinning him down, and Keith could do nothing as he felt a collar being wrapped about his neck, tightened so hard he gagged._

_No no no no._

_“Let’s see you run away now,” the man growled, the clinking growing louder and a new weight descending around Keith’s neck as it was clipped to the collar and he heard a lock click to hold it all in place._

_No._

_He got up and Keith tried to jerk to standing, but was dragged back down to his knees, the chain barely two feet long from where it was attached to the stake embedded deep in the ground._

_A booted foot kicked him in the ribs and Keith smashed into the stake, feeling it dig itself in his back atop the bruises already there._

_“You’re gonna learn your lesson, you ungrateful brat,” the man said, arms crossed and staring down at Keith as he curled around the stake. “One week out here ought to teach you.”_

_A week?_

_Keith trembled._

_A week in the Arizona sun with no protection, no food or water (or likely very, very little) and chained up with even less lead than their dog._

_He swallowed thickly, swallowed his pride._

_He would_ die _in those conditions._

_“Please,” he whispered. “I’m… I’m sorry.”_

_“And it’s working already,” the man chuckled. “Keep that up boy and maybe I’ll take pity on you and shorten your punishment, hmm? What do you say?”_

_Keith didn’t say anything, keeping his eyes lowered._

_The man laughed again and the sound of the screen door sliding behind him echoed in the silence before the storm._

_Keith curled up, arms wrapped about himself._

_The thunderstorm covered up his cries._

xxx

Keith awoke the next time to the familiar, painful sensation of the food injection.

He remained lying still as the crew member finished his feeding, whatever it was enough to keep him alive, to keep his body “pleasing to the eye” according to his owner, but not enough to give him strength, to make him feel full.

Only when it was over and Keith heard the door to his cage open and close and footsteps walk away did he open his eyes, lifting his head.

New storage room.

He wondered how long he’d been asleep for.  He still felt tired.

They’d no doubt drugged him more so than normal for the travels.

He couldn’t find the energy to care.

He shifted slightly, chains clinking.

They’d tethered him to the bottom of his cage after his one and only escape attempt. He’d managed to get his manacled hands around the gorilla alien’s neck when he’d come in for feeding time, alone this time as his partner was busy trying to handle one of the new arrivals, and Keith had taken the opportunity for all it was worth, squeezing and choking off his air supply as the alien had writhed and gasped.

He’d made it not even a step out of the cage, the first time free, the first time where his view wasn’t obstructed by bars, when the owner had come around the corner of his enclosure.

Those green eyes had widened with surprise…

But not fear.

Keith had found out why a moment later as the manacles about his wrists _buzzed_ and he was falling to his knees, tumbling out of cage door onto the metal ground below.

Shock cuffs.

Fucking shock cuffs.

Keith had been helpless, body shuddering with the foreign energy and its after effects, as the ape alien had collected him, tossing him back without any grace into his cage.

They’d tied him down then.

It was more lead from… from _before,_ almost four feet and it had been wrapped about his bound wrists, not his neck, but it had eliminated the one last bit of freedom Keith had had in his cage.

Chained like an animal, treated as worse.

Keith couldn’t even say how long that had been ago now. A longer period than he’d been given to walk freely about his cage, that he could say for certain. A lot longer.

“All right, all right, let’s get them moving,” he heard called from across the storage room. “Floor opens in a varga!”

He lowered his head back down, cheek pressing against the floor.

So there was a show tonight.

He shouldn’t have expected anything else.

It never stopped.

xxx

The event had started.

Keith kept his eyes closed as his owner spoke, hand tight in his hair, riling up the crowd, hearing them scream and boo and gasp and laugh.

It was better this way, to not see.

He never saw a kind face anyways and the pang, the hurt, that happened with every failed attempt was too much now.

There was no point in hoping.

Hoping just hurt more.

All he hoped now was for it to end quickly.

His muzzle was removed and he heard the shrieks as red-stained lips and teeth were revealed.

He heard something else.

It was barely there, a whisper, but it was so _different_ compared to the grating yells.

It was quiet horror.

Keith opened his eyes without consent, tired gaze looking past the immediate crowd pressed at the front of his cage.

It met a pair of jeweled eyes.

The face they belonged to was not familiar, olive, scaled skin framed with dark hair and large purple lips.

But he knew those eyes.

Those horrified, horrified eyes.

“Allura,” his lips formed the name, but no sound issued. He had no words left to say.

But still...

Allura.

She was here.

She…

She was seeing him as _this._

The already shameful blush from the handling grew in intensity even as _hope_ bubbled in his stomach, painful but welcome this time.

His head was wrenched back and her gaze lost to his sight.

He felt the syringe depress into his arm and he jerked in the grip.

No.

No.

Allura was right there. He didn’t want to go back to the haze of the drugs, of their pain.

He didn’t have a choice.

But above the sound of his screams as the fire ravaged inside him he heard something else.

“Keith…”

A choked sob.

“Hold on.”

A promise.

Keith clung to it with all he had.

xxx

Hands lighted on his shoulders and the touch was enough to bring Keith back, startling and jerking at the tether keeping him grounded to his cage.

“Easy, easy,” murmured a choked voice. “It’s… it’s okay. Just… just hold still, Keith, okay?”

The voice was familiar.

It knew his name.

It was removing the muzzle.

He could feel fingers pushing at the straps while there was a tugging at his wrists, the sharp sound of metal on metal.

Someone was cutting his restraints.

Heavy eyes opened.

Allura was kneeling in front of him, skin once more as he remembered and hair as white as freshly fallen snow.

He blinked.

He was dreaming.

He had to be dreaming.

“There,” came the other voice, satisfied, and the muzzle fell from his face a moment later. “Good riddance.”

Another dark hand, lighter than Allura’s, descended on his cheek, gently rubbing at the indentation from the mask.

Keith finally placed the voice.

Lance.

Allura.

They were _here._

He… he hadn’t imagined it.

“Done here too,” came Allura’s quiet murmur.

Keith felt the manacles pulled free from his wrists, the first time since he’d been captured, heard Lance’s sharp intake of breath and Allura let out a low curse.

He didn’t want to see what they looked like.

“Keith, man,” Lance’s voice was closer now, breath warming his ear. “Keith, you awake?”

Keith couldn’t remember how to say ‘yes,’ his tongue uselessly shifting inside his mouth. He let out a low moan instead, the sound pitiful.

“Oh _Dios,”_ Lance whispered. “Just… just hang on, okay, Keith? We’re getting you out.”

Something descended then along his bare back.

A blanket, his mind supplied numbly.

Clothing.

He shuddered beneath it.

Hands were tucking it underneath him, gentle and urgent all at once, and then he felt himself being rotated, the blanket wrapped even more fully around his front and covering him completely for the first time in…

In forever.

Hot shame warred with stark relief.

But when he opened his eyes again, they were so _heavy,_ and got his first real look at them, there was no disgust there for how they’d found him, for what they had to have known had happened.

Allura and Lance’s heads were angled above him, both instead looking a mixture of scared and angry and horrified underneath their Paladin helmets, but as Keith met Lance’s ocean gaze the tanned face softened, clearly trying to muster up a smile.

“You with us?” Lance asked gently.

So gently.

Keith hated how he felt tears stinging his eyes.

He managed a nod.

This was happening.

This was _real._

“I am going to lift you,” Allura said, voice just as soft. “Are you ready?”

Keith gave another nod, feeling a tear slip down his cheek.

Allura’s hold was firm but comforting as she cradled him easily to her, one arm supporting his back and the other at the bend of his knees.

“Lance,” she murmured and Lance moved in front of them, bayard in hand.

They crossed near silently in the storeroom and then out of a side door.

Keith inhaled sharply.

The sky shone above him.

He’d forgotten what it looked like.

Keith let out a low sob, stomach churning with emotions he couldn’t even begin to separate.

Lance hung back for a moment and Keith heard his bayard firing off shots, the dull clink of metal hitting the ground.

He was shooting off the locks, he realized. To the other cages.

The now freed animals _roared_ inside and Lance turned, giving Keith a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Time to go now, yeah?”

Going was apparently boarding the Blue Lion.

Keith stared up at her, awed.

He’d never realized how _big_ the Lions were.

To his surprise Allura did not let him go when they boarded, settling herself instead on the pulled out cot and holding Keith on her lap behind the pilot’s chair while Lance took the seat.

Keith couldn’t have complained if he’d wanted to; he felt _safe_ and such a feeling was so foreign, so strange that it was almost terrifying. He shuddered in Allura’s arms and she held him closer with a gentle murmur, one hand coming up to cup the side of his face, her thumb rubbing small circles.

He leaned into it despite himself.

Her touch was nothing like his owner’s.

No.

Not his owner anymore.

He was free.

He was never going back there.

He let out another choked sob.

“Ready to get out of here, beautiful?” he heard Lance say softly.

They were airborne a moment later.

“Coran’s prepping a pod,” Lance said, coming around a few moments later and clearly addressing Allura. “We’ll be back at the castle in ten. How… how is he?”

Keith realized he’d closed his eyes again. The darkness was so familiar he didn’t even realize when he was doing it.

He opened them just in time to see Lance leaning forward, brushing his bangs back from his forehead.

“No fever,” Lance reported quietly. Dark eyes met Keith’s and didn’t look away. Keith forced himself to hold that gaze, compassion and warmth and _safety_ swimming back at him. “You up for a drink, mullet? Got a water pouch with your name on it.”

Mullet.

Keith rolled the nickname, a remembered fond thing now, over in his head.

The rest of the words clicked in then.

Water.

A drink.

He… he was actually going to…

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Lance’s hand was gripping his shoulder as Keith felt his eyes stinging with tears again. “You’re okay, _estás bien,_ Keith _. Estás seguro.”_

Keith had no idea what the Spanish meant but he found it comforting nonetheless.

“The drink, Lance?” Allura prompted gently. Her hand had drifted lower, resting alongside Keith’s chin and no doubt she could feel the dryness of the skin there, cracked and broken.

A water pouch filled his vision a moment later, straw sticking gaudily out the top.

“Ready?” Lance asked and Keith nodded.

The straw poked against his lips and he carefully brought it into his mouth. Despite how much he wanted to drain the pouch, to feel water sliding against his throat, Keith resisted.

He didn’t want to choke.

He took the smallest inhale.

Water, _heaven,_ tickled his tongue.

It was so _good._

He drained it in a few seconds against his better judgment but he couldn’t stop himself.

He could feel his cheeks reddening again at how _desperate_ it must have looked.

But when he glanced up to Lance’s face he saw only a sad, pained smile with faintest sheen of tears sparkling in the corners of his eyes.

Lance was going to cry.

“Here,” Lance murmured, readying another pouch and blinking rapidly. “All yours.”

Keith drained that one too.

His stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch but it was nothing against the relief his throat and mouth were singing, the way Allura was still holding him so secure, so _warm,_ and Lance was gripping his shoulder now, keeping him grounded.

“Sleep,” Allura brushed his cheek. “You are tired.”

That wasn’t quite accurate; his exhaustion was mostly from the drugs, but Keith listened to the request, eyes fluttering closed.

Lance and Allura spoke above him, a gentle backdrop of sound. He could tell when they landed but he was too comfortable, content, to even make a noise as Allura’s arms tightened around him and she rose.

The rocking motion as she walked was lulling him back into sleep and he welcomed it this time, this peace—

“Keith!”

Keith’s eyes flew open.

He knew that voice.

Shiro.

Shiro was here.

His eyes widened as Shiro sprinted towards them in what he distantly recognized as the Blue Lion’s hangar.

Shiro was… not as he remembered him.

Shiro’s hair was a grayish white.

He was missing his prosthetic.

He looked _older,_ tired.

He was limping.

But his smile was splitting his face as tears filled charcoal eyes and he was _here._

And that was the only thing Keith cared about.

Shiro was _here._

“Keith!”

“Careful,” Allura cautioned. _“_ He—”

“Sh-Shiro,” Keith choked out, the sound foreign to his ears even as he knew it was his voice. “Shiro.”

Allura sank to the ground then and Shiro joined them, physically pulling Keith from Allura’s arms into his own lap, flesh arm wrapped tight about blanket-clad shoulders.

“Keith,” Shiro repeated, pressing his face against the top of Keith’s head. “Keith. Keith.”

Keith _sobbed._

Shiro held him tighter and he felt other hands descending; Lance’s on his shoulder, Allura’s against his back.

Safe.

He was _safe._

He was _home._

He knew it wasn’t over. The shame. The horror. The fear and sadness and nightmares and touches and memories and laughter.

But here…

Now…

In this moment he was happy.

He was him. A human. Keith.

And he was _free._

**Author's Note:**

> So I love Keith whump, okay? I don’t really write it as it never really gets traction from me (everyone’s just here for Langst apparently xd) but since this prompt was selected as the “double bingo” one I was like, fuck it, I’m going all out. So I did :D I am not sorry.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did please drop a comment below and give the author some love. I'd love to hear your overall impression, a part that jumped out, a piece of dialogue... the small details make my day! Thank you!


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